28

Feb

B-METRO COMMENT: Speak out and protect children

CHILDRENa��S welfare is our responsibility and quite important since without a good upbringing, such children would not be in a position to make a positive impact in future.

There is a tendency by society to look the other way whenever we see cases of children being abused, especially by their parents, and treating such incidents as domestic issues.

However, when such children become wayward due to the treatment they would have received at the hands of their parents, who were condoned by society, we tend to wonder what would have gone wrong with the children.

However, such children would be feeling let down by their families and society at large, hence the deviant behaviour.

Elsewhere in this issue we carry a story in which a man and his childa��s stepmother were hauled before the courts for abusing a toddler, whose mother dumped her at the fathera��s place and disappeared when she was still young. It took a child care worker to discover that the two-year -old was being starved and assaulted by the parents.

The couple which was in the habit of not giving the child food were arrested after the child care employee discovered that she was malnourished.

When she was still investigating the childa��s malnutrition case, she later discovered that the girl had bruises all over the body showing that she was being physically abused.

Had it not been for the visit to the area by the child care employee, it is our belief that the child could still be suffering or would have eventually died due to the abuse and starvation.

We believe as communities we need to rise up and protect our children against such monstrous practices by reporting suspicious happenings to the police and child welfare organisations.

Cases of child abuse and even child marriages take place within communities but many people look the other side in the face of such evil practices.

The abusive parents have since been convicted and sentenced while the child has been taken to a place of safety, showing that if we speak out we can together protect our children against abuse.